The 20th-century Swiss Catholic Hans Urs von Balthasar intervened boldly in a Western tradition of aesthetics—a tradition that had largely turned its back on theological categories and frameworks—to reassert a link between beauty and goodness. Beauty, for Balthasar, is of its nature enrapturing, and thus requires a transformation in the one who encounters it. In his view, it is artificial to drive a wedge between the call of beauty and the summons to goodness. His bid to recover this link has unexpected allies from other, less explicitly theological, quarters, including Iris Murdoch and her robust rebuttal of the analytic philosophers’ attempts to limit their consideration of goodness to questions of individual choice rather than the larger context of contemplative vision.

Professor Ben Quash came to King’s College London as its first Professor of Christianity and the Arts in 2007. He is Director of the Centre for Arts & the Sacred at King’s (ASK), as well as general editor of The Visual Commentary on Scripture (TheVCS.org), a pioneering open-access collaboration between theologians, art historians, and biblical scholars from all around the world. He runs an MA in Theology, Bible, and the Arts in association with the National Gallery, London. His recent book Theology, Modernity and the Visual Arts (co-edited with Chloë Reddaway) came out in July 2024. In October 2026 he will take up the position of Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University.

Venue & Admission

London Jesuit Centre, 114 Mount Street, London W1K 3AH

£10 General Admission

FREE for Temenos Academy Members/Full-time students with ID card